Bonner Leader Program

The Bonner Leader Program is an exciting opportunity for students with a passion for community service and civic engagement

The Bates Bonner Leader Program, overseen by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, is part of a national network of 80 campuses across the country. The Program’s goals are to promote opportunities for student development, learning and engagement through community work – we do this by providing students financial and programmatic support to participate in individual and group community-engaged work, orientation, training and reflection.

If this sounds interesting to you, we encourage you to apply to be a Bonner Leader!

And what will you do as a Bonner Leader? Lots! You’ll spend six hours each week working with community partners in the Lewiston/Auburn area. Current Bonners participate in a wide range of activities, such as tutoring and mentoring in local schools and after-school programs, gardening, working with adult refugees and participating in programming for senior citizens. You will pick a specific community partner with whom to do the majority of your work over a given semester (although we encourage you to explore various options). The work that you do can take a variety of forms, including volunteerism, academic community-engaged learning, or community-engaged research.

In addition to working in the community, Bonner Leaders spend about two hours a week together as a group, reflecting on experiences, participating in trainings to develop personal and leadership skills and having fun.

The Bonner program begins each fall semester with a weekend retreat away from campus. This is a time to reconnect with one another, to meet the program’s newest students, and to begin to reflect on how we would like our year to proceed. In addition, there are various opportunities for interested Bonners to participate in national conferences.

We are currently accepting applications for the Fall 2015 term. Click here to download an application. Please feel free to call or email with questions!